


symphonies of stars

by jolybird



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Animal Death, Fred's Not Dead, Gen, HP Creature Fest 2020 - Quarantine Creature Comeback, Werewolf Lavender Brown, Werewolves, background implied Cho Chang/Lavender Brown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:20:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26764951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jolybird/pseuds/jolybird
Summary: When Luna discovers a mysterious series of animal deaths' around the full moon while on a research trip in Wigtownshire, she calls in her friends for backup. What they discover is more than they bargained for but, above all, no matter what, they have each other.
Relationships: Luna Lovegood/George Weasley
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7
Collections: Creature Fest 2020 - Quarantine Creature Comeback





	symphonies of stars

**Author's Note:**

> Written for HP Creature Fest 2020. My prompt was: What happens when sweet/quirky Luna turns into a vicious killing thing?
> 
> Title is from [ Sibila Aieramo's “A Night in Prison” ](https://books.google.com/books?id=vGExVgUzAL8C&lpg=PP69&ots=Mk2bJXo72z&dq=sibilla%20aleramo%20%E2%80%9Ca%20night%20in%20prison%E2%80%9D&pg=PP69#v=onepage&q=sibilla%20aleramo%20%E2%80%9Ca%20night%20in%20prison%E2%80%9D&f=false).

George grabbed Hermione’s arm and tugged her backwards. Branches snapped from somewhere to their right. She glanced at him, running her hands over her hair as she tightened her ponytail to distract herself from the terror in her eyes. This was the third time she had been alone with a werewolf in the woods. 

You’d think the third time they’d be a little better prepared but Hermione’s wand was currently somewhere behind them, knocked from her grasp during a near miss in which George had burst onto the scene and distracted the werewolf long enough for Hermione to scramble away. The pair was together now, hiding behind the largest tree they could see but what use was hiding behind something if they couldn’t tell where the creature they were hiding from was?

“Charm a tree over,” Hermione whispered peering off into the distance. “We’ll use it as a distraction to get out of here. Ron and Luna must be back in town by now.” 

It was a solid plan, much better than the one that had them out in the woods during the full moon when Luna explicitly said there was a new werewolf in the area and they were having a rough go of it. 

Hermione glanced at him when he didn't respond and by the light of the full moon he could see her glaring. “You didn’t bring your wand?” Hermione hissed, George shrugged a little helplessly. He didn’t have the heart to tell her he had knocked it behind the bed while he was enthusiastically kissing Luna. Who was out here somewhere and entirely the reason they were out in the woods, sans wands, with a werewolf. There hadn’t been enough time to both get the wand and chase after Ron and Hermione when they realized Luna had never come back from checking on their perimeters. The night had been long until suddenly they were here and everything was happening at once. Luna had said she needed help with the series of animal deaths in the area and there had been a mad scramble to help her. They had an entire month to plan but still they were scrambling around like a bunch of school kids trying to help someone who was actively hunting them down. 

“Go get Ron and Luna, I’ll try to keep tabs on the werewolf until you get back.” George said, not really making his mind up but moving anyway. 

“I swear to Morg—“ Hermione began but George didn’t let her finish the thought. 

George pushed himself out from behind the tree and went right for the underbrush. He crashed through the dried leaves and brush and the werewolf was after him. 

This was probably a bad time to mention he didn’t have a plan other than _run_. 

So he ran. 

The werewolf behind him was, of course, faster but George kept running. He darted right around a clump of trees and headed down. He jumped across a small stream, his feet splashed as he skidded across the muck but kept his balance as he grabbed an exposed root and pulled himself up the embankment on the other side. 

The werewolf splashed across the stream the same instant George got to his feet and took off running again. 

So.

He was probably going to have to—

George ducked behind a tree and then raced for a rock outcropping. He crouched down as he rounded it and then shoved himself down to the ground. He braced himself, he probably had one good shot at kicking the werewolf off him but a moment passed and nothing happened. 

The moonlight shone down onto the forest floor in front of him and there was absolutely no sound. No birds, no crickets, no werewolf trampling around in the leaves. 

George didn’t move. He didn’t even want to breathe but his gasps were impossibly loud as he tried to catch his breath. The werewolf had to be on top of him. There was no way he had lost it. 

“Stupefy!” Hermione shouted, quickly echoed by Ron. Oh bless his favorite brother and sister-in-law. The moon was blocked by a shadow and then there was a thud directly in front of him. 

George slammed his hand on the ground as he pushed himself to his feet and ran in the direction of Ron and Hermione’s voices. 

“Where’s your wand?” Ron scowled, “and where’s Lu?”

“Behind the bed and don’t know.” 

Ron swore loudly but Hermione grabbed both of them by their wrists and dragged them off running. George glanced behind them. It didn’t seem like the werewolf was chasing them anymore, he hoped they hadn’t hurt them but finding Luna was what was important. 

The woods were taking on a blue tint as daybreak neared. George should be exhausted but adrenaline was keeping him going. Luna was around here somewhere. She was fine but he couldn't relax until she was in his arms. 

“This was mucked up beyond belief.” Ron sighed and looked behind him again. The werewolf had lost interest once they had their wands back. They would come back for them once they had Luna. They would be transforming back soon and that's when they would be useful. Hermione had brought pamphlets from work and Ron had been threateningly alluding to werewolf-related puns for days. 

“We could do with a point me charm.” George said the same moment Hermione cast it. 

It, predictably, pointed behind them. 

Wordlessly, they turned around and headed back the way they came. The woods were quiet now, and birds were beginning to sing as the sun rose and the werewolf presumably transformed back into human. George kept his eyes peeled for the both of them. With any luck Luna was already with them. It would make George feel better about the whole night. If they didn't find the witch or wizard or muggle who transformed, well what could they do? Hermione was radiating frustration but sometimes things just got cocked up and you had to try again another day, well, another full moon. 

“Hello?” Luna’s voice called from down a hill. There was a stream down there as well and the three of them took it at a clip. Luna grinned up at them as they came down the slope towards her. 

Luna was covered in mud and Ron cleaned her up with a flick of his wand. Luna frowned at the sun. "It can’t be morning already.” 

“You look terrible.” Ron frowned back at her. 

“I was looking for you but I—I might have hit my head.” 

“What?” George blurted out, elbowing past Hermione and Ron to hold her. Hermione and Ron elbowed him back to look her over. 

“No wounds. No bites, thank Merlin.” 

“I think I was just frightfully silly and slipped.” Luna frowned and let George pull her into his arms. Sometimes just holding someone was all the reassurance you needed that they were safe and okay. 

They turned around and scoured the woods all morning looking for the newly de-transformed werewolf. They didn’t find them, just a deer whose throat had been ripped out, but the full moon came every month and they would try again. 

* * *

The thing about owning a joke shop is that sometimes new products didn’t have their intended effect and Fred and George’s first instinct was that they were always the first test subject. George's wand arm was completely useless and numb but millimeter by millimeter feeling was starting to come back. It had been a daydream charm gone…off. Hermione had technically forbade George from going to Wigtownshire at the full moon. George had smiled and shown up at Luna’s camp the week before anyway. He helped her pack up camp the day of the full moon and they rented a room for the night. 

Harry and Ron had come this time to spend the night trying to coral the werewolf. Hermione and Ginny were coming near dawn in an attempt to actually find the poor person this time. Three months (at least) was much too long to spend transforming at the sight of the moon without friends. 

It had been silent all night and only now were birds chirping in the cool glow of early morning. George hadn’t slept at all last night. He had paced back and forth, tinkering with a couple new charms for the shop. Now he was cooking breakfast, figuring it was something to do even if he didn’t feel like being particularly useful this morning. The best thing after a morning’s transformation was a fry up and Ginny had dropped off some fruit before she darted off into the dark after Hermione. Personally, he thought the five of them were just out telling spooky stories around the campfire without him but whatever. It was warm in the flat. 

“I think I solved the mystery.” Luna’s voice was faint and George looked up from the papaya. He hadn't even heard her come in. Blood soaked the front of her dress, it was in her hair, on her hands, and smeared all over her mouth. 

George looked out the window as if he could see the moon in the morning sky. He thought about Lupin, about Lavender, about his own brother. “We really should have given this possibility some thought.” 

Luna’s hands were shaking but she shrugged her shoulders, “Hindsight is everything. Can you come with me to find who I hurt?” 

Dropping the knife, he raced around the kitchen island. “ _Tergeo,_ ” he said, cleaning the blood off her with a simple wave of his wand. He wanted her to stay here, he didn’t want her to see but she had seen the others, the deer last month, the goats the month before. 

Presumably Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny were scanning the woods looking for Luna but they didn’t bump into them as they walked through the woods. For all that lycanthropy was uncommon, there certainly was a lot of it in their lives. They walked in silence until they reached the stream. Luna walked along the river bed silently, her hands floating at her side, an almost but not quite balancing act. 

Luna sat down on a small boulder by the river's edge. She was so close her shoes were wet but George went to sit next to her anyway. He didn't know what was going through her mind but he would be quiet until they figured out what she needed. He hoped it was laughter, he was good at that, but he'd try his best with whatever she wanted. 

“How did I not realize?” Luna asked quietly, looking at her hands, scrubbed clean by the spell but George took them and put them in the river anyway. He rubbed at the memory of the blood on her fingers and traced along her nailbeds until both their hands were numb from the cold. 

“I could have killed you and Hermione.” Luna said, her voice small and unsteady. 

George shrugged, whishing they could shrug everything off just as easily, “To be fair, we both lost our wands on our own.” 

“Is that meant to reassure me?” Luna frowned and George hated to see her frown so he picked her up with his good arm and awkwardly carried her back to the path. Luna crossed her arms and did not say anything. Her frown was pronounced though and that made George grin. 

A small smile found its way onto her face and she kicked him in the shin until he dropped her. “I can't believe you managed to carry me that far. Is your arm any better this morning?” 

“Still useless.” 

Now it was Luna's turn to shrug, “It’ll come back.” 

“Pretty sure I could flip Ron off today if I really concentrated.” 

“Well that’s good progress.”

They rounded a bend and the others came into view, they were crowded around something on the ground and George’s stomach dropped. The form on the ground looked distinctly human. Luna gave out a tiny little moan and raced forward. 

Ron looked up when they came and Ginny ran to meet them, “Death eater. He was shouting about jixing people so they didn’t realize they were transforming. We don’t know _how_ many people he’s infected. He's not a werewolf himself but--well I won't get into it. Whoever's transformed has no idea, they won't have a wound.” 

“Oh.” Luna said and George wrapped his arms around her. She rested her head on his chest as she looked to her friends. 

“Harry punched him and knocked him out.” Ron frowned but there was a bit of pride about his lips that he couldn’t shake. 

Harry was looking at Luna and Luna nodded at him. Immediately, Harry was on his feet and wordlessly pulled Luna into a hug. George stepped away to give them some room. He was always impressed by how Luna and Harry could wordlessly understand each other. 

“George?” Hermione asked and George shrugged. He looked to Luna and then to the death eater on the ground. It had been years but these losers were still clinging to their hatred. 

“Get him back to the Ministry so we can find out who else he hurt.” A lot of his rage from the war was gone, replaced by a tiredness that came with rebuilding. 

"Wait--Luna?" Ron asked and George only nodded. Honestly, he thought they were going to have to say it and he wasn't sure if Luna was ready for that. Soon, probably, but not quite yet. 

Ron and Ginny both swore in unison and Ginny pulled both Harry and Luna into a hug. Hermione got to her feet and Ron kicked the unconscious man. Hermione didn’t scold him. 

"There was blood. We were out trying to find what was hurt." George explained. 

“It was another deer. I dealt with it.” Hermione said. 

“I had breakfast started. I think we could all use some tea.” 

Hermione nodded. “You three go, Ron and I will take him and get to the bottom of this. We’ll meet up with you when we can.” 

George shrugged, “More for us.” 

“No you better save us breakfast.” Ron glared and someone in the Harry-Ginny-Luna hug laughed under their breath. It was a start. 

* * *

The nature of lycanthropy was that the further away from the full moon you were, the easier it was to forget about it. The nature of growing up during a war was that you probably weren’t the only one to carry scars. 

The next full moon found them at Cho and Lavender’s home in Dorset. Lavender was spending the moon with her parents, thus freeing up the hidden room under the barn for Luna. With wolfsbane it was just a room to hide the transformation. The world had changed a lot from when they were children but neighbors still didn't take kindly to werewolves moving in. 

Cho handed George and Bill thermoses of tea, “The front door will be open and don’t mind the horses and goats, they might be nervous with the new smell but some moons Lavender just paces the barn. They're used to her by now.”

“Thank you again for letting us stay.” George told her sincerely. 

“Of course. If Luna’s up to it, Lavender can help her through next month. Maybe they can get some work done around here, I'm sure we can find something they can do.” 

“Luna will be touched Lavender offered.”

“The lot of you will have to fuck off though, she’s still very self-conscious.” Cho smiled, although it was a fond teasing in her voice. 

George grinned, “Of course. Maybe we'll branch off Wonder Witch to include werewolf cosmetics.” 

“She’ll eat you alive.” Cho grinned back and then looked up at the sky. The stars were bright, much brighter than they were in London and George had to admit, if Luna wanted to spend every full moon out here or back home with her father, George would be all too happy to accompany her. 

George sighed, “Okay. We should get back in.” 

“Yeah, go get your girl, George Weasley.” Cho smiled. 

There was a lot George could say back to her but he kept it to himself for now and headed back into the barn with his brother on his heels. Bill was in exceedingly cheerful spirits this moon but he wasn’t going to push his luck with him either. 

Back inside, Ginny, Hermione and Harry were reading to Luna who was transformed and curled up in a surprisingly decadent pile of pillows on the floor. The hidden room under the barn was...classy but he didn’t know what else he expected of Lavender Brown. If she was forced to hide her lycanthropy, it shouldn’t be a surprise she’d want to be comfortable. 

Fully transformed, Luna wasn’t much bigger than George. As far as werewolves went, she was exceedingly small. She looked up when George came in and then put her head back down. Ginny was reading something about toads to her and there were probably worse ways to spend the night. Luna had been more anxious than George had ever seen her and they didn't want her alone with her thoughts, not this first night. The book was Ginny's idea and so far it was working to keep her calm. 

They took turns reading aloud to pass the time and it was only interrupted when Luna would suddenly start pacing or try to stand on two legs. For ten long minutes, she had peered at the book herself and then threw it across the room when she went to hand it back. It was the first time George had ever seen a werewolf sheepish before. Not that he had much experience with them, but Luna had looked incredible sheepish and Harry had laughed as he went to pick it up. 

Morning came slowly and then all at once. Luna was back in her human body suddenly with a great popping of bones and gasps. Tears filled Ginny’s eyes as she raced to her side. George grabbed her clothes and joined her. 

“I’ll be okay.” Luna said, but she was pale and her voice was weak. Ginny pulled her firmly against her chest. 

“I’ll kill the man who turned you.” Ginny swore against the top of her head. 

Luna bit her lip and said nothing. She dressed quickly and then forced a smile on her face, “Thank you for reading to me. It was a great idea. Werewolves can’t read, did you know?”

“I wonder if Remus ever told that to McGonagall?” Bill asked, turning around from where he had been studying the wallpaper. 

There was a knock on the trap door and then Cho opened it, “Morning.” 

“Thank you for letting us use this room.” Luna smiled, and this time it actually met her eyes. 

“You're always welcome here. Neville, Ron and Fred showed up a few minutes ago. I have them gathering eggs and tomatoes for breakfast. Lavender’s always starving after the moon.” 

“George mentioned that Lavender invited me to stay next month.” Luna smiled. Actually, he didn’t remember saying that but he had started babbling around four. Bill and Harry had tried to hide their laughter and failed. Ginny and Hermione had both been napping.

Cho smiled, “I’ll make you breakfast every month if that’s what it takes for you to actually visit us.” 

Luna smiled and laughed a little, “Thank you. That’s very kind.” She gasped and looked around, “Oh—does someone have a quill, I wanted to write some notes down.” 

“In the house, come on.” Cho smiled and Harry took Luna’s arm and helped her up the stairs.

Bill caught George’s elbow as he made to follow, “She’s okay. You know that right?”

George glanced ahead to where their shadows disappeared from view. She wasn’t quite okay but...she would be, eventually. They all would be. The war had been over for years and yet things like this were still happening to people he loved. It was exhausting. He wanted it to be over but it might never be over, not completely. There would always be something to fight, to survive through. “She’s tough. She’s already figuring things out, treating the full moon like a chance to get caught up on her reading and dragging all of us into her research with her. She doesn’t deserve it but she has us.”

“All of us.” Bill reminded him. He and Fleur were stopping by more frequently with dinner. Mum actually hadn't let Luna go for a full ten minutes when she found out. Sometimes George felt like his family was suffocating but they always rallied together in times like this. 

“Oi!” Fred shouted, appearing suddenly at the top of the stairs. “If anyone’s meant to be moping this morning it’s Lovegood but she’s already left you for a whole swarm of chickens, sorry Georgie.” 

“Well, if they make her happy.” George shrugged and Bill pushed him on ahead. They walked out of the barn to the sound of laughter. It wasn’t the future he imagined but it was theirs and they were going to live it. 


End file.
